Cemre Kara
July 2026
Cemre Kara is a sensory designer and artistic researcher based in the Netherlands, whose practice explores the role of the senses in shaping human experience, social interaction, and spatial perception. She graduated from the ArtScience Interfaculty at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK) in 2021, and was a resident at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht.
Working across performance, installation, and participatory formats, Kara creates immersive environments that engage audiences through sensory storytelling. Her practice often centers on food, smell, and embodied experience as tools to question cultural norms and social behaviors. Early works, such as Elbows on the Table, examined how dining rituals and table manners are constructed and how they function as mechanisms that regulate social interaction and reduce conflict. Her graduation project was awarded both the ArtScience Department Award and the iii Research Residency Award.
In subsequent projects, Kara expanded her research toward the relationship between humans and kitchen technologies, developing experimental tools and performative dining situations.
In subsequent projects, Kara expanded her research toward the relationship between humans and kitchen technologies, developing experimental tools and performative dining situations.
cemrekara.com
Her long-term project [dis]comfort food invites participants into interactive dinner settings where familiar utensils and habits are disrupted, encouraging reflection on Western dining conventions, colonial histories, and the politics embedded in everyday gestures.
More recently, her work has shifted toward olfactory research and sensory mapping, investigating smell as a medium for understanding place, memory, and atmosphere. Through walking-based methodologies and material experimentation, she develops alternative forms of archiving that challenge visually dominant ways of knowing environments.
Kara’s practice is grounded in research and collaboration, often incorporating workshop formats, collective experiences, and citizen science approaches. By bridging art, design, and social inquiry, she creates spaces where audiences become active participants, engaging critically with their sensory surroundings and the cultural systems that shape them.
More recently, her work has shifted toward olfactory research and sensory mapping, investigating smell as a medium for understanding place, memory, and atmosphere. Through walking-based methodologies and material experimentation, she develops alternative forms of archiving that challenge visually dominant ways of knowing environments.
Kara’s practice is grounded in research and collaboration, often incorporating workshop formats, collective experiences, and citizen science approaches. By bridging art, design, and social inquiry, she creates spaces where audiences become active participants, engaging critically with their sensory surroundings and the cultural systems that shape them.